


new life.

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Marvel, Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Children, Complicated Relationships, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, Nightmares, Power Imbalance, Pregnancy Scares, References to Norse Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 08:34:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14951249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Post-Ragnarok, on the Ark, Loki's thoughts are ever turning in circles.





	new life.

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous: Pregnancy scare for Frostmaster?
> 
>  
> 
> Note that this is Loki's POV, and I've intentionally written a lot of the dialogue as ambiguous. By no means am I trying to romanticise the obviously iffy set-up between the Grandmaster and Loki - I'm experimenting with a style that's kind of light on the details, just to play with Loki's perspective and Loki's thoughts about the whole thing.

There is burst of light within him, a flickering of some foreign flame: Loki feels the familiar sensation of something having  _caught_  inside him, feels the shift of blood vessels and nerves, feels his body - subtly, oh-so-subtly, but easily detectable to any shapeshifter worth his salt - alter.

Life.

New life. 

He puts his hand to the hard, secondary rib cage that protects his belly, tilting his head, and he feels another heart beat - faster than his own, much faster. It coils swift and sharp, and he hisses in pain as he feels it burn like a shattering star, feels the incandescent heat of a thousand  _suns_  rip through his veins, and surely, surely he will die--

Loki wakes in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. 

Glancing around, he sees that he has fallen asleep in the lab upon the Ark... He is laid on the couch to the side of the room now, but he had fallen asleep at the desk itself, pouring over books... 

“Brunnhilde moved you,” Banner says quietly from where he is looking over a set of streets, and Loki nods dumbly. Shifting his hand under his tunic, he feels the hard, cold plane of his body. Blood vessels are arranged as usual; his womb is quite empty; Loki is not pregnant. He hasn’t been pregnant in over two thousand years.

(” _You know, I could, ah, I could make you. If I wanted.”_

_"Please don’t.”_

_“Mmm, your little, ha, your little contraceptive spells, they’re... They’re cute. But, honey, your magic is no match for mine.”_

_“Please don’t.”_

_“Aw. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t... Who knows?”)_

Shakily, he exhales, and he runs his hand through his hair, drawing it back from his uncomfortably warm forehead. “You okay?” Banner asks, looking at him with uncertainty shining in his eyes. “You look, uh... Kinda chalky.”

“Jotnar don’t sweat,” Loki says softly. “What you’re seeing is the muscle layer beneath my skin becoming more tensed, closing the doors... It makes my face, my features, seem unnaturally dry, and inflexible.”

“Oh,” Banner says. He understands what Loki has said - he understands differences of biology. Slowly, shakily, Loki stands. “You okay?” he repeats softly. “Have a nightmare?”

“Yes,” Loki says shortly. 

“You wanna talk about it?”  _No_ , is Loki’s reflexive response, but he hesitates, looking at Banner for a long few moments. Banner’s expression is open, earnest. He looks at Loki as if he trusts Loki not to turn upon him, as if he thinks Loki might be  _more_  than crazy as a box of  _cats_. The sensation settles comfortably cool in his chest, and he feels himself relax by the most infinitesimal amount. “It must have been hard, leaving, uh... You had a good time on Sakaar.”

Had he? He supposes so. Sakaar was better than Asgard, easily. Better than Midgard. Better than many places. No prejudice on Sakaar. No fear of  _Loki_  - only of the Grandmaster. Loki had never been hungry, had never been without somewhere to sleep... He thinks of sleeping in the Grandmaster’s bed, feeling the heat of his ancient hands on Loki’s body, thinking of the way he had  _craved_  it...

Shame coils in Loki’s belly where no seed grows. Here Loki is, barren and alone, and  _safe_. 

_(”You, uh, want me to?”_

_“No.”  
_

_“How come, sweetie?” Silence. “Aw, you’re... What, you’re afraid I’d hurt a baby? **Our**  baby?” More silence. “I wouldn’t force you. I wouldn’t force you to do, mmm, anything."  That's such a ridiculous lie that Loki laughs at it, and gains a burst of agony for his troubles. "When you come to me... Then we’ll, uh, then we’ll have a talk.)_

“You know,” Banner says quietly. “Being the, uh, being the big guy for my time on Sakaar... That was weird, you know. We’re separate, me and him, but it protected me, I guess. To be those two different people. Maybe you did something similar?”

“Do you know how many names I have?” Loki asks softly. 

“Uh, Loki, Son of--” Banner cuts himself off. “Two?”

“Thousands.” Loki adjusts the way his robes - so different to the leathers he had worn on Sakaar, so different to anything he has ever worn in Thor’s presence - settle on his shoulders. “I have myriad selves... And they are all me.  _Loki_. I am the focal lens, if you will. My person on Sakaar was neither separate nor distinct from aught that I had been before. We are not the same, you and I. You share your body with a monster: I share nothing, for I  _am_  the monster.”

“You aren’t a monster,” Banner says. It is reflexive: it is the best comfort he knows how to give. Loki smiles when he sees the hesitation come into his eyes after he throws the sentence out. But then Banner says, “You scared he’ll come after you?” and Loki’s smile fades. 

“The Grandmaster is a figure of the present, not the past. He would no more chase me than he might a relic of a thousand yesterdays. I’m nothing important.”

( _Loki’s resolve is weakening. He watches the Grandmaster one night, playing idly with an instrument not unlike a lyre, and he asks, “Would you promise me? Never to hurt it?”_

_“Hurt what?” the Grandmaster asks, innocently.  
_

_“Our child.”  
_

_“ **Our**. I, uh, like the sound of that.”_

_“I wouldn’t take anything less than a vow bound to your magic,” Loki says._

_“What? You, ha, you saying you wouldn’t take me at my **word**?”_

_“No, Grandmaster. Never.” A wry smile comes to the surface at that - a wry smile, and eyes glittering with the light of the universe._

_“Clever boy.”)  
_

“What about the future?” Banner asks. “What if he came for you in the  _future_?” Loki shrugs. 

“That’s the future,” Loki says. “This is the now.”

“The now,” Banner agrees. “With nightmares.”

“I have nightmares anyway,” Loki says simply. Banner lets out a short sound, as if he’s frustrated, and he sets his hands down on the counter, looking at Loki very seriously, his expression grave. “You wonder why I stayed with him for so long, if I do not fear him.”

“ _Yes_.”

“There are things worse than fear. Things worse than pain.”

“Like what?”

“Grief.” A long pause stretches out between them.

(” _I’d like a daughter,” the Grandmaster whispers in Loki’s ear. “Wouldn’t you like that? Another daughter?”_

_“Not yet,” Loki says softly. “Not yet.”  
_

_“Okay,” the Grandmaster murmurs. Relief blooms in Loki’s chest, and for once - **for once**  - he believes the Grandmaster’s promise. He  **won’t**  force it, won’t trip Loki into this situation. He is waiting patiently for Loki to come to it on his own, and it makes Loki’s heart swell in his chest.  
_

_That afternoon, Thor arrives._

_Everything is dashed to pieces._ )

“What’d he give you?” Banner asks. “Brunnhilde, he gave her so much drink and money she could just coast and never think about anything. The Hulk, he gave him fights, and glory, and his own damned rooms. What did he give you?”

“Attention,” Loki answers. Banner’s laugh is dry, and disbelieving.

“Really? That it?”

“He gave me hope,” Loki says. It is closer to the truth, and it makes Banner’s face fall. Loki sees a mix of emotions at once - fear, at the forefront, and disgust, and there, at the back of Banner’s eyes...  _Pity_. 

“You must have asked for stuff. You must have wanted  _something_  from him.”

(” _All you have to do is ask, honey. I’ll, uh, I’ll give you the universe on a platter, if you want it.”_

_“And at what price? What would you ask of me in return?”  
_

_“Aw, I woulda... I woulda thought you’d, mmm, grasped **that**  one, baby. I want you.”  
_

_“You hurt me.”  
_

_“Uh huh.”  
_

_“You’re cruel.”  
_

_“ **Cruel**? Me? No, honey, I... I do what’s best. And you gotta, ha, you gotta trust that. Loki, you give yourself over, and you’ll never, ha, you’ll never want for anything ever again. Me, you, and baby makes three.”  
_

_“And what of freedom, Grandmaster? What of that?”  
_

_“What does freedom mean to a guy like you, Lo-Lo? Name a time you’ve, ha, been **free**.”_

_Silence.)_

“I wanted a great deal from him,” Loki agrees. “Nothing I was foolish enough to ask for. I am not like the Hulk, Banner. I have no need of an arena to posture in, or opponents to fight. I have no need of alcohol to soothe me, nor coin to fill my coffers.”

“Not even a throne?” Banner asks. “He wouldn’t have given you one, if you’d asked?”

“There was one thing I wanted,” Loki whispers. “One thing I would have asked for. One thing he would have given me.”

“What was it?”

_(Divination is no easy process. It requires one to look at the webs spun by the universe itself, and to play upon those evolving threads, to see what greater picture might be revealed._

_Loki sits alone on an island in Sakaar’s great sea, and he draws the threads over one another. He sees her. **Va Nee Gast** , bright-eyed and blue-skinned, laughing amidst a party, clinging to the Grandmaster’s side._

_“Aw, kitty,” the Grandmaster scolds, and the vision slowly fades from Loki’s sight. “No peeking. You’ll ruin the surprise. You ready to ask?”  
_

_“Not yet, Grandmaster. Not yet.”)  
_

“Something that would have been taken from me, in the end.”

“By him?”

“No,” Loki says. “By anyone else in the universe.”

“You talk about him like he’s... Like you trust him.”

“Perhaps I would have trusted him. With some things.”

“How can you say that? Guy was a mad man.”

“Perhaps I belong at the hands of mad men.”

“You’re crazy,” Banner says. Ah. Yes. He supposes he is. 

“I’m going to my quarters, now,” Loki murmurs, and he turns neatly on his heel to go.

_(”You oughtn’t keep asking me,” Loki says. “I might say yes, and then where will you be?”_

_“Right here, baby. Right here with you.”  
_

_“You oughtn’t,” Loki repeats. “For your own sake.”  
_

_“Well, for **my**  sake, sunshine, why don’t you give Daddy a kiss?”)  
_

There is a shift inside him, and Loki inhales a sudden gasp, stopping in the middle of the corridor on the Ark. The thought passes as soon as it had come, and Loki is hit by the overwhelming urge to cry. 

“Lackey,” Brunnhilde says, catching him by the shoulder. “You okay?” He knows better than to even  _attempt_  to explain, this time. 

“Yes,” Loki lies. “Merely an upset stomach.” Brunnhilde hesitates for a second, looking him up and down, then seems to take the lie. Nodding, she pats his shoulder, and Loki makes his way back to his quarters. He doesn’t slip into bed - instead, he pours himself a bath that is too hot, that is painfully hot and scalds his skin. 

Inside his belly, he feels the phantom twitch of a thread unspooled, and this time, the tears roll hot down his cheeks.

_(”Aw, Lo-Lo,” the Grandmaster murmurs in his ear, his voice full of sympathy. Loki is in desperate pain, stretched too wide over a frame of dark wood, and yet if he can just hold his place, if he can just take it for long enough, then he will be rewarded. And isn’t that he wants? Isn’t it what he craves, what he needs? “You see, you keep... Nobody would take our daughter away. You, uh, you understand that? No one could even **try**.”_

_“But I couldn’t leave either,” Loki whispers. “You torture me, I cry, that’s... That’s par for the course, my dear Grandmaster. But with another between us? How could I ever leave? How could I ever deprive our child, by abandoning one parent?”  
_

_“Who says you gotta?”  
_

_“Common sense. Morality. Parental instinct.”  
_

_“Ignore it all.”  
_

_“Easy for you to say. You have one of the three.” The Grandmaster leans back on his heels, a smirk coming to his lips. He doesn’t even seem annoyed at Loki’s plain, frank speech._

_“Which one?”)_

He feels a phantom touch upon his shoulder, and he turns. There is no phantom here: he sees golden fingers, decorated with a bright ring, spread loosely over the cool skin. 

“What say I, uh, put a bun in this oven, huh?” the Grandmaster’s voice purrs in his ear. 

Then he is gone, and Loki is alone - always alone. 

Sinking further into the waters, he feels the bath bite hot against his flesh, and he closes his eyes, tightly. His belly is a knot of snakes, twisting anxiously, and he imagines at every turn, imagines, imagines--

It is foolish to imagine. It is more foolish still to sentimentalise over one’s imaginations. 

Loki is a fool. He always has been.

( _”I love you, honey.”_

_“I don’t love you back.”  
_

_“You could.”  
_

_“Could I?”  
_

_“Uh huh.”  
_

_“That would be foolish of me.”_

_“Aw, Lo-Lo. Love makes fools of us all - even Elders! Even me!”_

_“Even you.”_

_“Even me.” Loki could ask. He could ask right now, could ask for the Grandmaster to spend deep inside him, could feel that spend catch, could feel a flower **bud**  within him, ready to bloom... Loki thinks of Thor in his prison cell, thinks of him._

_Too late, now. Too late.)_

“Didn’t the Grandmaster ever offer you anything?” Thor asks, weeks later.

“No,” Loki lies. “Never.” 

**Author's Note:**

> [Hit me up](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/ask). Requests always open.


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